Greetings, dear readers! In touch with you, Timur Mustaev. Some amateur photographers consider landscape one of the most basic genres of photography. To some extent, I share their point of view: go wherever you like, and shoot whatever comes into your head.
Plus, unlike studio shooting, which requires considerable financial costs, nature will not disappear and will not require anything in return except careful treatment of it, and the situation changes depending on the time of year, giving scope for imagination.
But is the landscape really that simple? Let's figure it out together.
Let's start the debriefing, perhaps, with the definition of this genre and its place in human reality.
Landscape in photography
Scenery is a genre in which nature is the center of the image.
This trend originated in the era of the absence of cameras, when famous and not so famous artists went out into the open air and conveyed what they had seen with the help of brushes and paints.
That is why understanding the meaning of this genre should be learned from realist artists.
Paintings, like nothing else, allow you to experience all the beauty of nature; they are inextricably linked with the inner world of a person, with his feelings, mood and love for life in general.
And in photography, a landscape is not a thoroughly accurate redrawing of this or that corner of nature, but one’s own perception of the world.
Modern landscape photography is quite versatile. Exhibitions of such materials instill in the viewer an artistic taste and develop imagination by drawing associative parallels between real life and pictures.
The relationship between photographic art and life gave rise to a new direction - the urban landscape, in which the dominant element is not nature, but the brainchild of society - the city with its numerous streets, architectural objects, squares, as well as an endless stream of cars and pedestrians.
The urban and classical landscape captivates even the most stingy photographers! And there is an explanation for this: by shooting in this genre you can get excellent shots without using expensive equipment.
All you need is desire, patience, a tripod, an SLR camera, and some skills in using it.
Shooting in this genre, as in any other genre, is, first of all, a creative process, accompanied by your own vision of what is happening, but, oddly enough, there are many rules, the observance of which will save you from failure.
Landscape photography
Close your eyes for a moment and imagine: in front of you are stretched out spaces of unprecedented beauty and it seems that as soon as you press the shutter, the most beautiful image that the world has never seen will appear on the camera display...
Capture this episode in your memory and open your eyes, your fantasy will remain a fantasy, and you will never learn how to photograph a landscape if you neglect the rules listed below.
- Maximum sharpness. Many photographers practice shooting landscapes with an open aperture, however, “many” is not an indicator of good work.
A classic technique for landscape photography is focusing on the entire image (shooting with a closed aperture).
Usually it is enough to make simple camera settings to get a sharp and moderately exposed photo: the slider is around f/11-16, but you can trust the automatic if you shoot at . However, to avoid movement, it is better to shoot landscapes using or.
- Having meaning. For any photo, it is important to have a semantic center of the composition, so that, as they say, the eye has something to catch on to. The center of attention can be anything: an interesting shaped building, a tree, a mountain, a ship in the middle of a sea, etc.
- Rule of thirds in the overall composition of the frame. The location of the semantic center relative to all elements and details of the picture is as important as the presence of sharpness.
The reference says: a photo looks most advantageous when the objects being photographed are conventionally separated by lines that divide the image into three parts, both lengthwise and crosswise.
- Thoughtful foreground. Place the semantic centers on the front part of the photo, leaving “air space” in front, this way you will be able to create the effect of lightness and convey depth.
- Dominant element. The secret of successful nature photography has been revealed - either the sky or the foreground should dominate the picture.
If your photos don't fit this description, they'll likely be considered boring and ordinary.
If it happens that the sky during the photo shoot is uninteresting and monochromatic, move the horizon line to the upper third, so you will not allow it to prevail over the rest.
But if it seems that the airspace is about to explode or collapse on the ground with streams of lava, give it 2/3 of the frame and you will see how much the plot of what is happening can change.
- Lines. There are endless ways to capture the beauty of nature to its fullest. One of them is the technique of including active lines in the composition. With the help of lines, you can redirect the viewer’s gaze from one semantic point of the photo to another, while creating a certain enclosure of space.
Lines not only create patterns in a photo, but also add volume. This also applies to the horizon line, beyond which you constantly need an eye and an eye.
- Movement. Many people consider landscape photographs to be calm and passive. But this is not necessarily the case! You can add life to a photo with the help of water or wind, for example, use a DSLR camera to capture the violence of the ocean or a flowing waterfall, the blowing of the wind or the falling of leaves from a tree, the flight of birds or the movement of people.
The influence of weather and time on the quality of landscape photography
The Golden Rule of Landscape: “The scene and subject matter can change dramatically overnight, depending on weather conditions and the time of year.”
It is a mistake to believe that the best time for nature photography is a sunny day.
In cloudy weather, in terms of lighting effects, it’s a pleasure to shoot: hail, sleet and thunderstorms can fill any landscape with an ominous, mysterious mood.
However, there is a side effect - the possibility of getting your feet wet, getting sick and saying goodbye to your DSLR forever, since moisture can have a devastating effect on all electronics.
To avoid this, plan your day in advance, take your preparations seriously: think about what to wear and what to wrap your camera in. For these purposes, it is best to purchase a waterproof case or at least one that protects the lens from drops getting on the lens.
Shooting in the rain doesn't have to be - it's just one way to achieve artistic images.
This creates a very soft diffused light, giving the pictures a lightness and a special sleepy look.
A forest covered in fog will look much more mysterious and attractive than on a sunny day.
Although if the shooting takes place in summer or autumn period, light shining through foliage can create an interesting look at an open aperture.
During sunset, using , you can photograph no less interesting landscapes, especially if the foreground is slightly backlit.
To avoid bunnies, use a lens hood or. This filter is simply irreplaceable in landscape photography.
Night photography is technically the most difficult. Taking pictures of nature in full nature is pointless due to the lack of light. Therefore, you need to go where there are artificial light sources - the city.
In this case, it’s not worth using the flash continuously, raise the value to 800-1600 and go towards the city landscape!
A brief educational program on the topic of landscape photography has reached its point of no return! I hope this article was at least somewhat instructive and useful. I think that I have conveyed to you the meaning of how to photograph a landscape correctly in order to achieve the desired results.
If you are an aspiring photographer who wants to achieve positive success in photography, then everything is in your hands. The best place to start is with the concept of your DSLR camera. And one of the video courses below can become an assistant. Most novice photographers, after studying this course, have a different attitude towards the SLR camera. The course will help you uncover all the important functions and settings of a DSLR, which is very important at the initial stage.
My first MIRROR- for owners of a CANON DSLR.
Digital SLR for a beginner 2.0- for owners of a NIKON DSLR.
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All the best to you, Timur Mustaev.
Landscape is probably the most popular genre that amateur photographers use to introduce themselves to artistic photography. There are many reasons for this.
Firstly, this genre is the most accessible. Unlike staged studio photography, in which you need to at least pay for renting a photo studio, nature will not escape you. If the photo is unsuccessful, then you can go to the same place again, but, for example, at a different time of day or in different weather.
Secondly, the landscape is not very demanding on the level of photographic equipment. Of course, it will be difficult to take high-quality photographs of a landscape with a cheap compact device or smartphone, but an amateur DSLR, mirrorless camera or a more or less advanced compact camera can provide quite acceptable results.
Thirdly, a landscape does not require haste, unlike, say, a reportage. It gives you the opportunity to experiment with camera settings and shooting point, try, and finally abandon the automatic mode in favor of manual. To some extent, this is filming “for the soul,” and some people find the filming process more enjoyable than watching the footage.
Based on this, one may get the opinion that landscape is a very simple genre, the lot of dummies and housewives (one “pretentious” wedding photographer put it this way, I won’t name the name). In my opinion, only those who have not tried to delve into the intricacies of landscape composition, limiting their creativity to views from the window of a house or car, can argue this way. How then to explain the fact that out of millions of landscape photographs published on the Internet, only a few evoke a feeling of admiration? So, the genre is not so simple...
What do you need to know to become good landscape photographers?
I hope you understand that the topic of landscape photography is very voluminous and it is simply impossible to fit it into a standard article on the site, so I will only talk about basic things. There are only two of these things - exposure and composition.
Exposition- this is the total light flux captured by the matrix during the opening of the shutter. This light flux is dosed using three parameters - shutter speed, aperture, ISO sensitivity. If you don’t know what this is, or have simply forgotten, I recommend pausing reading the article and going to the Photo Tutorial. In addition to text and pictures, at this link you will find a camera “simulator”, which can be used to track how exposure settings affect the resulting image. Correct exposure is the basis of technical image quality. Sharpness can also be considered a technical quality, but I think there is no need to explain in detail what it is :) Although, if you wish, you can read the chapter of the Photobook.
Composition- this is the relative position and interaction of objects and light sources in the frame. To put it simply, if the viewer understands what the photographer wanted to tell and show with these photographs, they say that there is a composition. If a photograph is a jumble of objects that are not connected to each other in any way, interfere with each other and do not carry any special meaning, then there is no composition. Or is it so sophisticated that not everyone can understand what they wanted to show?
Let's not dig into the jungle of composition rules for now, but remember two simple rules A:
- Simple compositions out of 1,2, a maximum of 3 key objects are created relatively easily, and are also easily perceived by the viewer. You shouldn’t try to fit everything you see into the frame - a road, a hill, a forest, a lonely tree, a cloud, a fence, a goat in a meadow, a bridge in the distance. Concentrate on the most important and important things. Any photograph, even landscape photography, must have a plot or motive. Try not to take into the frame those objects that have nothing to do with it.
- Equilibrium. Try to ensure that key objects are evenly distributed across the frame, do not interfere with each other, and do not obscure each other. It will help you with this rule of thirds. Mentally divide the frame into 3 parts horizontally and 3 parts vertically something like this:
For many cameras, you can even enable the display of such a grid on the screen. Try to “pull” large key objects to these lines, and small ones to their intersections. Intersections are also called visual centers.
If there is only one main subject in the frame, try to place it as close as possible to one of the visual centers, and so that more space remains in the direction where the subject is “looking”. Let me give you a specific example:
The house “looks” to the left in the photo, so we’ll give it more space on the left. But what if there are more key objects? Yes, everything is approximately the same - arrange them so that they “lie” on the line of thirds, and some of their prominent parts are combined with the visual centers:
However, the rule of thirds, no matter how good it is, cannot always be applied. If objects are not tied to the lines of thirds and visual centers in any way, simply position them so that there is some hint of symmetry between them relative to the center of the frame.
The above photo doesn't fit the rule of thirds by any stretch of the imagination, but it nevertheless has symmetry and balance. Take away at least one element, this balance will be disrupted.
Many people have a question - how to place the horizon line in the frame. In the middle? A little higher? A little lower? Let's take a closer look.
Example 1.
This is a composition with an “upper” horizon. It is used when you need to emphasize a small object in the foreground. In this case, it is a stone lying in water. It is located exactly in the “golden ratio” (plus or minus half a centimeter).
What will happen if in this case we use the “lower” horizon? Let's mentally lower the shooting point to the level of the height of the stone. It turns out that the stone will be against the backdrop of the dark distant shore, that is, it will be “lost.” The balance of the photo will also be lost - its bottom will be overloaded with details compared to the top.
That is, in a picture with an “upper” horizon, the foreground is key.
Example 2
And this is a composition with a “lower” horizon. It should be used if you need to emphasize the distant or middle ground. In this case, there is a close-up shot (a meadow on the shore of a lake), but it carries virtually no semantic meaning.
But let's mentally remove the foreground - what do we get? Nothing good! The picture becomes flat - it loses depth and volume. Therefore, even with a “low” horizon, the presence of a foreground is very desirable.
However, there are situations when you have to deviate from the golden ratio rule. Rarely, but they do happen.
Example 3.
This is a shot with a "middle" horizon. This composition should be used when we are dealing with reflections of objects in water. In this case, the upper and lower parts of the photo complement each other perfectly. But you need to think seriously before using the “middle” horizon and avoid it if possible (except in cases where it is the only option for implementing the idea of the photo). Very often inept use of this compositional technique leads to the fact that the horizon “hurts the eyes.”
Pay attention to the picture on the right. This is a typical compositional mistake, try not to repeat it. The plot is completely devoid of dynamics - the viewer moves his eyes along the shore line (as if it attracts him with a magnet) from one edge of the picture to the other and is unable to understand the author’s idea. It’s not even clear which object is the main one in the frame. The shore is not suitable for this role, since it is too homogeneous and monotonous, there are practically no details visible on it. The only thing that can be regarded as the main object is the gaps between the clouds on the right side of the image. But then the role of the shore is not clear at all, it gets in the way, but you can’t get away from it... Whatever you say, the composition of the photo is simply not good! By the way, this is one of my first photos:)
Example 4
There is no horizon line! To be precise, this photo cannot be called fully landscape. It's something like minimalism. Beauty is in simplicity. But this “simplicity” must be carefully verified so that there is nothing superfluous other than what evokes some kind of emotion in the viewer. The title of the work is "Come back...".
This work benefits from its plot and internal dynamics. The diagonal composition, which emphasizes movement, plays a significant role in this. That is, a fisherman on a boat sails into the distance (to the upper left corner), and a blade of grass from the lower right reaches behind him, as if saying “where are you going???” By the way, this photo was quite highly appreciated by professional photographers.
The absence of a horizon can be used very effectively in “minimalist” photographs. A prerequisite is the presence of internal dynamics (that is, the photograph must direct the viewer’s attention in the direction intended by the author) and the reduction of objects to a minimum (there may even be only one object, but it must be positioned so that it is not in the center, but the photograph would not lose poise). In general, I think there will be a separate article about minimalism.
Tonal solution
The second one is very important feature photography is its tonal (color) solution. Since color affects the psyche, the tonal solution is one of the main components of the mood of the photo. The tonal solution can be of several types.
1. Photo in bright colors
Helps convey lightness, calmness, and tranquility. Subtle but pleasant colors were used. It is important that the plot be suitable for such a tonal decision. In this case, it is a quiet spring day. A very important technical point is that when shooting (or processing) you do not “blend” light areas into whiteness (prevent the loss of information about plutons).
2. Shot in dark tones
These are mainly night shots. To be fair, it is worth noting that photographing nature at night is a fool’s errand. The foreground will be completely black, and the background will be quite dark sky. For night shooting you need to go to the city with its lanterns and glowing windows. Night shots look very good in cool blue tones (which is achieved during processing). In this case, it is played on the contrast of the anxious mood associated with the overall cold tonality and the warm light in the windows, bringing peace. In general, yellow on blue almost always looks good (but not vice versa!).
3. High contrast
This is the case when the picture simultaneously contains both dark and light tones, ranging from absolutely black to absolutely white. Such an aggressive tonal solution has an exciting effect on the psyche. The main problem in implementing this tonal solution is the transmission of halftones. The dynamic range of the camera is often not enough to correctly convey both highlights and shadows (the given example is no exception), so a significant part of the image field may be occupied by black or white areas (loss of information). But if you still manage to reduce these losses to a minimum, sometimes you can get some pretty spectacular pictures.
Perspective
When we stand on a railroad track and look into the distance, we see that parallel rails converge on the horizon to one point. This is what perspective is. In relation to photography, this concept can be formulated as follows: perspective is an attitude angular dimensions identical objects located at different distances from us.
The transfer of perspective depends on the focal length of the lens. Let me give you an example.
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f=80mm | f=200 mm |
If you look closely at these two photographs, you will notice that the foreground was shot at the same scale, but the background with a 200mm lens turned out to be larger. But there is one "BUT". The 200mm lens has a noticeably smaller angle of view than the fifty-kopeck lens, so I had to move very far from the subject to place it in the frame. In general, focal lengths up to 80 mm (equivalent) are considered the “landscape” range. The most commonly used focal lengths are from 28 to 35 mm. in this case we get a pronounced perspective and depth of the photo. When shooting at long focal lengths (with a telephoto lens), the perspective is very weak and the picture may seem flat.
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f=28 mm | f=460 mm |
As we can see, in the photograph taken with a wide-angle (28mm) in the field of the frame there is a space from 2 meters (sandy bottom) from us to infinity (far shore). The perspective is clearly expressed, the transfer of volume is noticeable. It is possible to say with some accuracy how far from us it is to the sand spit or to the far shore.
A photograph taken with a telephoto lens (460mm) has virtually no perspective. It is very difficult to judge by eye the distance from the trees in the foreground (at the bottom edge of the frame) to the cranes in the background. The photo looks completely flat. In fact, the distance between the foreground and background is more than a kilometer!!!
However, I must note that you can also shoot wonderful landscapes with a telephoto. But there is one caveat. Since the telephoto camera has virtually no geometric perspective, you should use tonal perspective. That is, when the separation of plans is observed due to the difference in their illumination (or visibility).
Here is a clear example illustrating the concept of "tonal perspective". With the same focal length of 460mm, the image does not lose volume due to the pronounced separation of plans due to fog.
Lighting
The original definition of photography is “light painting.” Beautiful light turns a simple image of an object into a work of art. Oddly enough, the role of lighting is often undeservedly forgotten. And completely in vain.
In landscape photography, we only have one light source - the sun, and we need to adapt to it. Let's consider characteristics lighting in different time days.
1. MORNING
It is rightly believed that the most Better conditions illumination occurs in the early morning immediately after sunrise. The sun does not shine very brightly through the veil of morning fog and gives a very gentle and warm light. The fog itself, being a light diffuser, provides us with great opportunities to use tonal perspective.
Fog works wonders! Notice how perfectly it conveys the volume and depth of the image. And the backlight, generating diverging rays, gives the picture a special chic. Now imagine what a photo taken in the same place, but on a bright sunny day, will look like? Absolutely right - nothing special! Regular trees, ordinary grass. We've seen this thousands of times! And with morning light and fog, you can take very interesting pictures almost anywhere!
What to do if the sun is low and there is no fog (for example in the evening)? Use backlight.
Backlight can be used very successfully when there is something in the foreground that will be backlit (with the overall dark tone of the photo). For example leaves or flowers. However, when using backlighting we encounter two obstacles.
1. Camera dynamic range. As you can see, in the above photo it was not enough and the sky turned white. (shot by the way with the same Olympus 860 with which I took my first steps in photography)
We've dealt with backlighting, and now let's look at some examples of what good things can be seen in the morning hours. This is definitely heaven.
Very often on a summer morning in good weather there are very beautiful cirrus clouds in the sky, backlit by the sun. But to shoot them you need: 1. a wide-angle lens, 2. a polarizing filter is very desirable, which increases the contrast of the sky. (read more about what a polarizer does). The first photo was taken just after dawn. The second - after 1 hour. No processing was done in Photoshop. Notice how beautiful and unusual the clouds look when illuminated by the low sun (first frame). The second one looks more ordinary - almost the same as taken on a sunny day.
2. DAY
Sunny day - it really is worst time for artistic landscape photography. The only thing that can make a “daytime” landscape interesting is, first of all, a beautiful place combined with a well-thought-out composition. If morning photographs are more like paintings, then daytime photographs are more like “postcards”. Yes, they are nice to look at, but they are unlikely to “hook us to the quick.”
Cloudy day - also not the best option, because the light is uninteresting. It takes a lot of effort to capture something truly worthwhile. Most of the photographs come out without mood - the same postcards, but “gloomy”. Very important role The sky plays a role in the artistic value of a photograph during daytime shooting. It is very difficult to photograph a normal landscape if the sky is completely clear or covered with a monotonous veil of clouds. Photographs in which clouds (cirrus or cumulus) play some role in the composition look much more interesting.
As already mentioned, a polarizing filter is used to make the sky more expressive. Cirrus clouds are interesting because they usually occur at some interval, which can be advantageously used as a basis for realizing the rhythm and dynamics of the image.
It should also be mentioned that a lot of interesting things can be seen in unstable weather, when dark thunderclouds can be present at the same time and the sun is shining. And if you're lucky, you can see absolutely terrible, but very beautiful phenomena such as, for example, atmospheric fronts.
If you notice that something is wrong with the weather, don’t rush to hide!It is quite possible that “Armageddon” will be very beautiful!:) By the way, this phenomenon is very fleeting - no more than 1-2 minutes. Therefore, try to take a good shooting point in advance (and one that has somewhere to hide from the rain:)
3. EVENING, SUNSET
The main thing that is most often photographed in the evening is sunsets. Absolutely everyone takes them off and many times! But for some reason, most sunset pictures sent to photo sites receive a very average rating.) . And no wonder! Spectators have already seen so many sunsets that it is difficult to surprise them with anything.
So, in order to capture a quality sunset (from an artistic point of view), you need to carefully consider the idea of the photo. Point-and-click photography is doomed to fail because it's a cliché idea. So, the main components of success:
- Colors and shapes. Keep in mind that sunsets have very interesting color combinations when the weather changes. Sometimes oddly shaped clouds appear on the horizon. The color of the sky is usually very beautiful and unusual.
- Dynamics. Avoid static subjects at all costs. Remember, the idea itself is terribly hackneyed, so look for something that can give the photo a “zest.”
Since there is very little light in the evening, the ground tends to be very dark. That's why sunsets are most often filmed over water.
This is one of my few sunset landscapes that I consider more or less successful. For a better understanding, I recommend viewing the enlarged version. What do I think makes this photo successful?
- Contrast between a cold overall tone and a warm stripe on the horizon
- The rhythm that is formed by the waves on the lake and the clouds in the sky.
- Image depth. There is also a clearly defined foreground (reflection of clouds in the water), middle (forest) and distant (horizon).
- Conciseness. Nothing extra. By and large, there are only 2 clearly identified main objects in the frame - the sun (with reflection) and the forest on the shore on the right.
One more example. A photo that received quite a high rating.
This was already taken after sunset. Beauty is in simplicity! There is only one object in the picture, but it is well located relative to the background (which, by the way, forms a diagonal) and the “golden ratio”. The color scheme of the photo played a big role (again, the contrast between the cold tones in the upper left corner (LUC) with the warm ones in the lower right corner (LNU).
But let's not focus on sunsets, but turn our gaze in the other direction and I'm sure that we can see something quite worthy there.
But for such filming you already need a tripod. Pictures taken closer to night are distinguished by a special and sometimes very pronounced mood, which is due to the predominance of cold tones. For originality, I recommend placing small objects in the frame that somehow contrast with the overall tonality.
4. NIGHT
Night photography is one of the most difficult in terms of technicality. As already mentioned, it is useless to photograph nature at night. Because the natural sources there is no light (the moon doesn’t count - it’s too weak). Therefore, for night shooting you need to go where there is artificial light. A tripod is required. General recommendations are:
- Concise photographs look better
- Don't overuse long shutter speeds. It is still night and the photo should be in a dark tone.
- If you want to do tinting in Photoshop, use cool tones to draw the general plan, and closer to warm ones for light key objects.
- Some photographs in black and white look more interesting than in color. Keep this in mind.
Examples:
So what do we have?
Shot 1. Played on the contrast of warm tones given by the light source and the overall cold atmosphere.
Photo 2. Laconic composition. Nothing to add, nothing to take away. Clouds illuminated by the moon play a very important role - they seem to compositionally connect the moon with a dried tree. That is, they are openwork like tree branches and at the same time “repeat” the moonlight.
Pictures 3 and 4. Agree that without the fog they would be much less interesting!
A few technical points
WHY SHOOT RAW?
RAW- this is nothing more than information taken directly from the camera’s matrix and recorded on a flash drive without processing. Digital SLRs typically use 36-bit color (12 bits per channel), compacts use 8-10 bits per channel. At the same time, in the format JPEG (both DSLRs and compacts) use a color depth of 8 bits/channel. That is, when processing information by the device’s processor, we inevitably lose information. Which one? That's another question. Let's look at an example.
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Pictures taken by the device Canon 300D. Left - JPEG , shot automatically. On right - RAW , filmed under exactly the same conditions, processed with a converter from the composition Adobe Photoshop CS. By JPEG we see that the device made an error in measuring the exposure (part of the sky fell into whiteness) and in the white balance (the colors turned out cooler than necessary). Correct these errors with only JPEG quite difficult - information about the color of the sky is lost, it is impossible to restore it in its original form.
And here those additional 4 bits per channel come to the rescue (in the 300D RAW 36-bit - R+G+B), which were lost when processing information by the camera processor, which "brought" the representation of color to the form R, G, B. Using this information, we can correct the white balance, tighten up the shadows, and even save “burnt out” highlights. (if the overexposure is not very strong).
In addition, RAW The converter allows you to set an arbitrary level of brightness, contrast, saturation, and image clarity, correct noise reduction and even chromatic aberration (and these operations are performed with a 36-bit image). And when shooting in JPG These parameters in the device can only be changed in steps (usually for each parameter there are 5 gradations - -2..-1..0..1..2), and not all settings are available. During processing JPEG in the editor program we are no longer dealing with a 36-bit, but with a 24-bit image, that is, one way or another we cannot use all the information that we could have using shooting in RAW.
WHAT TO DO IF THE DEVICE DOES NOT ALLOW YOU TO REMOVE RAW?
The most important thing is not to trust the machine. If in simple conditions illumination (for example, a sunny day) it will probably cope with the task, then in the morning or evening (and even more so at night) you will have to manually specify the white balance and/or enter exposure compensation. It’s better to take a photo a little darker than overexpose it - “pulling out” shadows is much easier than correcting highlights that have fallen into whiteness. The easiest way is to use a tool Shadows/Highlights , which is present in Photoshop CS (Image/Adjustments/Shadows-highlights)
Here is a clear example of the capabilities of this tool. To extend the shadows, use the "group" controls Shadows". Amount and Tonal Width (switch to the advanced mode of the tool) set the degree of shadow correction, and Radius- "span" of the tool (it's easier to see how it works than to explain in words:). Default Radius=30px and around dark areas, light halos may form. I recommend increasing the radius.
So...
I'm not finished yet! Everything that has been said here is nothing more than my subjective opinion. I'm sure that after some time I will want to change a lot. But for now, this is my current view of landscape as a genre of artistic photography - so simple at first glance and so complex if you dig deeper!:)If you have any questions or suggestions, please send them to email, I will be glad to answer.
Arts. Photographing beautiful landscapes is prestigious and profitable, since the best representatives of this genre cost a lot of money. This article will discuss how to shoot landscapes and get beautiful photos. To get high-quality results, you need to follow a few simple rules in photography, know the basics of composition and use the right lenses. All this will be discussed in this article.
Key Features of Landscape Photography
An important feature of landscape photographs is the clarity of the image throughout the frame. The beauty of landscape photography lies in capturing nature in its entirety. Therefore, it is important to shoot landscapes with the narrowest aperture possible.
The quality of light is one of the components of good, beautiful landscape photography. There is the so-called golden time of photography, when the lighting is most conducive to creating attractive shots. This is the time after dawn and at sunset. In the cold season, the sun is initially softer, so you can navigate according to the circumstances and take photographs when it is convenient. Despite the fact that golden time is considered to be the time immediately after dawn, you need to arrive at the shooting location itself at least an hour before the start of photography. With the time you have available, you will be able to find the best places to work.
To photograph a landscape, it is traditional to use a wide-angle lens; only with its help can you achieve the widest possible coverage of reality. Wide coverage can be achieved with a regular Kit lens (), but to get high-quality photographs you will need specialized optics that allow you to take high-quality shots. Aberrations, which appear in the form of colored halos, are more likely to occur when shooting with zoom lenses, so when shooting landscapes it is better to use a wide-angle prime.
How to shoot a landscape? – Camera settings
As already mentioned, in order to create a high-quality landscape shot, it is necessary to convey all the clarity of the image being depicted, for this it is necessary to shoot with a narrow aperture. Under narrow, an aperture of f/12 or narrower is assumed. Light conditions are not always conducive to photographing with a narrow aperture and fast shutter speed, so landscape photography often requires the use of a tripod or monopod for image clarity.
Most likely, you will have to work manually or semi-automatic mode aperture priority. The cameras also have a special automatic landscape shooting mode, in which case the camera itself will set all the necessary parameters.
As for shutter speed, in aperture priority mode the camera will set it automatically, but in manual mode the correct setting falls on the shoulders of the photographer. In bright light, with an aperture of f/16, the shutter speed will be 1/100 sec., but since the lighting is not always ideal, the shutter speed can be significantly slower. For high-quality work, you will most likely have to use a tripod, otherwise there is a risk of blurring the frame.
The sensitivity value should be minimal, otherwise noise and grain in the image will spoil the detail in the colors of the frame. To remove beautiful landscape It’s better to sacrifice the shutter speed by making it minimal. Try not to increase ISO under any circumstances.
Composition in landscape photography
The rule of thirds in composition was first used in painting, but is very popular today in photographic art. Precisely positioning the main components of a frame using this rule will produce outstanding results and beautiful images that your viewer will want to look at again and again.
Where to begin
I understand perfectly well that not all beginners can be surprised by such terminology as shutter speed, aperture, focal length. However, I advise you to first study the “Photography Textbook” (“Landscape” is a direct continuation of it), and at the same time refresh the terminology on the “Photo Dictionary” page, so as not to return to explaining key concepts: this is more convenient (and more useful) than run through the links and back every time. And most importantly, it is useful not only for reading how to shoot a landscape. As I understand it, you intend to take photographs, and not just read :)
Lens
You can shoot landscapes with absolutely any lens, from fisheye to long-focus. And if you only have one lens with which you get magnificent pictures, then you shouldn’t buy another one - specifically “for landscapes”. And then the text should be taken solely for reference, and not run to the store for wide optics so that “more will fit into the frame.”
In general, I advise non-professionals to shoot any subject with one lens and learn to do it in such a way that all their plans come out with a bang. For
Buying expensive optics (or a new camera) will never improve anyone’s photography skills.
And yet there are some rules that you should know. Before you start shooting landscapes, you need to choose the “right” lens from your collection (or the right focal length, if there is only one lens). For owners of point-and-shoot cameras, compact cameras and other cameras with non-replaceable optics, the question does not disappear. Their lens is firmly built into the camera, but you also need to be able to use it. Put it in the “wide angle” position; there is no need to “pull out the zoom” here. More precisely, this is not always necessary. Next, we read together with the “mirror people” how to shoot a landscape correctly :)
So, we take a wide-angle lens, or set the existing one to the minimum focal length. Wide-angle optics provide a larger viewing angle and greater sharpness and are therefore more often used for landscapes. Of course, at a medium angle and in a telephoto position (and even with a very long telephoto lens), you can also shoot landscapes with no worse results, because a lot depends on your plans. But still, landscapes are often shot at wide angles, since landscapes imply spaciousness and depth of field across the entire field (which is difficult to achieve with long-focus optics).
Let's look at all the examples using a specific (and quite budget) model: the Pentax DA 16-45 mm f/4 lens. Consider that I promoted it :), but Canon and Nikon owners should not be upset or fall into a “religious dispute”! Your technique is no worse and even better! Let's get down to business. We are now interested in the numbers on the 16-45 lens. This is the focal length. Since I have a digital SLR, and the aspect ratio of the frame (matrix) of the Pentax is approximately 1.5, we multiply 1.5 by our numbers and get an equivalent focal length (EF) of 24-68 mm. I made this recalculation so that you can compare your focal length with it. For those who don't understand: I strongly recommend that you read the Focal Length in 35mm Equivalent (EGF) again :), since only the equivalent focal length will be indicated below. As a result, we have a lens with a wide angle (everything less than 35 mm is “wide”), a small telephoto position of 68 mm and a constant aperture of f4 for different ends of the “zoom”. As you can see, this is not the most outstanding “zoom”, but its wide angle is quite decent.
What is distortion
So, we set the lens to the widest angle position, in this case it is 24 mm. Of course, you shouldn’t shoot portraits at a wide angle, since a wide-angle lens (even an expensive one!), due to its design, can (and does!) produce geometric distortions, or as they also say “distortion.” What is distortion?
This is a curvature of the image in the lens due to uneven magnification of objects from the middle of the lens (group of lenses) to its edges. 
And now the same thing, but simpler: this is when straight lines look crooked, the central part of the photo protrudes, the background seems further than it actually is, and the perspective is distorted :) Why does this happen? In any lens, in general, everything is worse at the edges, there is only one consolation here - with distortion, the sharpness of the image is not impaired. Of course, in a specialized wide-angle prime, distortion is minimized, but even there it is still there.
In the image, geometric distortions are clearly visible to the naked eye; the shooting was carried out at the widest angle (EGF = 24 mm). It is especially noticeable how the house on the right is piled on its side, looking more like the Leaning Tower of Pisa than a residential building. What if he falls? :) How to shoot a landscape and live your whole life with this grief in your heart? Is distortion a flaw in a photograph? or lens? Of course, the lens is involved (and the wider the angle, the more distortion), but there are still a lot of creative questions, and no one knows the exact answer.
One thing is certain: distortion is always less of a drawback than an unsuccessfully composed frame :)
Well, to complete the experience:
The absence of distortion is always a lesser advantage than a well-composed shot :)
And already in the case of an ultra-wide-angle fish-eye lens, distortion from the category of disadvantages smoothly turns into undoubted advantages :) And in general, there are photographs where in a similar way they try to emphasize the expressiveness or dynamics of the plot. At the end, it’s worth adding: distortions in themselves are very bad :) Well, they explained... they completely confused me! - another will say. In fact, the situation is like this. Empty and deserted highway. There is no traffic light, but you need to get to the other side. Of course, you will cross - don’t wait, in fact, for the traffic lights to be installed :) but break the rules traffic- this is very bad... it’s better not to violate it! And the conclusion? And the conclusion is simple: everything comes with experience! :)
To reduce distortion, or vice versa, increase its influence (for example, for artistic purposes), you need to know that such distortions are especially pronounced if you shoot from bottom to top a frame where there are vertical lines (pillars, trees, walls of buildings, etc. .) And especially if these lines are located closer to the edges of the picture. Distortion is significantly reduced if you zoom in (increase the focal length). And, of course, no one forbids the use of high-quality optics, such as
the SMC Pentax DA 15mm f/4 AL Limited lens, or a similar wide-angle and high-quality prime lens, also exists with a wider angle (and powerful aperture). Optics of a similar class are available in many other systems, but I am not able to write reviews of all “landscapers” due to lack of time. The general drawback of such lenses is one thing - the price hits you on the spot, and not in the eye, but in the eye. But even the most expensive of them cannot perfectly correct distortion. Therefore, many people correct distortions in Photoshop, and we will return to shooting landscapes with our 16-45/f4.
Landscape and aperture
In general, a wide angle is good for landscapes, while a focal length of 50mm or higher is optimal for portraits. For landscapes, as a rule, the aperture is closed so that everything is sharp, “from the navel to infinity,” as is often the case with compact cameras: in landscapes there you don’t have to cover the aperture at all :). A DSLR is more difficult to use (no matter what the advertising says!) - a fast lens can blur the foreground when focusing on distant objects. And not even very fast, as in our case - see an example:
Landscape No. 1. Path to the sea.
aperture f4, shutter speed 1/2000, EGF 39 mm.
By enlarging the photo we will see that the pebbles in the foreground are slightly blurred. Why? It is known that various types of distortions increase towards the edge of the lens and decrease towards its center. By covering the lens with a diaphragm, we make only the central part of the lens work. Those. reduce distortion. These are the laws of optics. This also applies to sharpness - as the aperture opening decreases, the depth of field (depth of sharply imaged space) increases. I won’t torment you with evidence: believers look for materials in the Bible, or believe everything the preacher says; atheists will take a physics textbook and find in the optics section formulas for constructing optical systems and the properties of a simple lens; photographers will simply trust their experience - the choice is yours :) Let's get back to the photo. Here the aperture f4 was set to the maximum open for this lens; as a result, the depth of field is small and the pebbles in the background “did not fall into this depth of field” - they were slightly blurred. Why is the foreground blurred? Because focusing was done at a distance quite far from it (along the coastline). To “focus attention” on the pebbles, you had to focus on them, and then everything else would be blurred - both the sea and the coastline. But what if we want to have a sharp frame across the entire field? That's right, shoot the landscape with a point-and-shoot camera! And the unfortunate owners of DSLRs will have to think very hard with their heads :) - for example, about how to hold down the aperture: and for this you will have to read the instructions, and then study the camera, and then look for where this lever or wheel is to control the aperture, and even think what position should you turn this wheel to, and what do the numbers mean, which will change and what kind of sharpness will it cause - in general, everything is not so fun at all... :)
But seriously, the very short shutter speed used in the picture made it possible to close the hole to 11 (in this case, all the light rays that form our picture pass closer to the center of the lens lenses!) - and then we would get a picture sharp from the pebbles in the background - up to the sea inclusive. In this case, a shutter speed of 1/250 sec was obtained, which is more than enough for static shooting. In theory, with a focal length of 39 mm, a shutter speed of 1/60 sec would be enough, but I don’t recommend going to extreme values (both shutter speed and aperture) unless absolutely necessary.
Landscape No. 2. Path from the sea :)
aperture f8, shutter speed 1/500, EGF 24 mm.
Blurring the near (or far) part of a landscape photo is not at all necessary. This is why I advise you to cover the aperture even on a compact camera - to develop a habit called “correct photography.” For a DSLR camera, this is a necessary reality - unless, of course, you want to deliberately blur part of the image. On the right you can see a similar example, but taken with the aperture held down and focusing on palm trees and girls :) ⇒
Yes, yes, this is the same path, but now it leads not to the sea, but back :) But now we are not interested in palm trees and girls, but in something completely different. In this photo, both the far and near shots are quite sharp. It’s easy to verify this by enlarging the image to compare the cloud with the nearby pebbles of the path.
Here the aperture could be closed down to 11 - a shutter speed of 1/500 of a second made it possible to do this, turning into 1/250, which would also be quite enough for a wide angle. With such good lighting, photographing landscapes is very comfortable; almost any camera can handle this, including an automatic point-and-shoot camera, and, I think, any photographer :)
It is generally accepted that it is better to shoot landscapes with the camera in a horizontal position. However, as can be seen from two latest pictures, they may well stretch from bottom to top! If the plot requires it (and it did here!), then with vertical (they also say “portrait”) photography, the landscape looks no worse than horizontal.
What is hyperfocal
The desire for sharpness to the very horizon is almost an indispensable condition when photographing landscapes. How to focus correctly? The easiest way to do this is to set the lens to infinity (the icon next to the distance scale). In this case, everything will be sharp from a certain border to the horizon, which allows you to fully concentrate on choosing a composition without being distracted by focusing the lens. However, in this case, the depth of field will be slightly less than the maximum the lens can provide.
Here you can focus not on infinity, but directly on the mentioned near edge, so that the horizon remains sharp enough, and the near edge of the depth of field moves even closer to the foreground. This is called hyperfocal distance setting.
Therefore, when photographing a landscape, it is important to remember:
Hyperfocal focusing provides maximum sharpness from half this distance to infinity.
Sometimes this half is just not enough to sharpen the close-up. Eat simple formula for practical calculations, which, to be honest, I never use myself :-)
H = F 2 / D * C, Where
H - hyperfocal distance
F - focal length (not EGF, in meters)
D - aperture number (denominator)
C - circle of confusion = 0.043 / 1500 /k (i.e. 1/1500 of the length of the film diagonal in meters, k is the crop factor of your camera).
Let's get the hyperfocal distance in meters.
When shooting landscapes, doing such calculations is extremely inconvenient, so you can combine the “infinity” symbol on the lens scale with the division of the depth of field scale, which corresponds to the set aperture. If there is no scale (almost always with new optics!), then learn to determine the distance by eye. In general, nothing unusual, everything is as always :)
Below is a table of hyperfocal lengths for some cameras, typical focal lengths in EFR (for clarity of comparison) and most landscape apertures. The distance must be divided by 2. For example, on a DSLR with a 50 mm lens and an F8 aperture, focusing on the hyperfocal will be 7 m, which means we get a depth of field from 3.5 m to infinity. As you can see, the smaller the matrix, the wider the angle and the tighter the aperture, the more opportunities you have to capture both the near and far shots in sharp focus.
| Hyperfocal in meters | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Matrix size | EGF | F2.8 | F4.0 | F5,6 | F8.0 | F11 | F16 | F22 |
| 36x24 k=1 | 24 mm | 7 | 5 | 3,6 | 2,5 | 1,8 | 1,3 | 0,9 |
| APS-C k=1.5 | 24 mm | 4,8 | 3,3 | 2,4 | 1,7 | 1,2 | 0,8 | 0,6 |
| APS-C k=1.5 | 28 mm | 6,5 | 4,6 | 3,3 | 2,3 | 1,7 | 1,1 | 0,8 |
| APS-C k=1.5 | 35 mm | 10 | 7 | 5 | 3,6 | 2,6 | 1,8 | 1,3 |
| APS-C k=1.5 | 50 mm | 21 | 15 | 10 | 7 | 5,3 | 3,6 | 2,6 |
| APS-C k=1.5 | 100 mm | 83 | 58 | 42 | 29 | 21 | 15 | 11 |
| Compact 1/1.8" k=4.8 | 28 mm | 2 | 1,4 | 1 | 0,7 | - | - | - |
In this situation, the compact feels the best here (even not with the smallest matrix). A real landscape artist! I didn’t list compacts with smaller matrices; everything from sneakers to the horizon is so sharp. It's okay, such cameras have a lot of other problems :)
How to shoot a landscape in summer :)
And it’s easiest to shoot a landscape in summer, since good lighting happens much more often than in winter, and the colors are more saturated. But no one has canceled other subtleties of landscape photography.
Shot #3 is fairly typical: sharpness at infinity is especially important for landscape photographs, in which the background is just as important as the foreground. But the shooting of the magnificent Ladoga landscape at the source of the Neva was carried out for greater effect from a very low point, which made it difficult to get depth of field from the stones (close to the camera) to the horizon, much further from these stones. Setting it to infinity did not help: everything was great except for the foreground, which stubbornly did not want to fall into the depth of field even with such a clamped aperture.
But setting the hyperfocal to a distance closer than infinity helped - focusing on a stone in the water (I estimated the hyperfocal by eye). The aperture was clamped to f11 (I didn’t want to clamp it narrower than f13-16 due to possible diffraction) and, of course, the widest angle helped. As a result, the depth of field moved to the closest stones, while continuing to reach the horizon.
The focal length for landscapes is usually chosen less than the standard one, this ensures both a greater depth of field inherent in short-focus optics and a wide angle (more space will fit into the frame). In landscape No. 3, all possibilities were used: the “correct” hyperfocal, sufficient aperture, and the widest possible angle (for this lens) was taken.
Of course, a landscape can also be shot at a longer focal length: it all depends on what you want to shoot, the angle, and the ability to get closer. For example, I didn’t have the opportunity to “frame with my feet” when photographing landscape No. 4, because I would have drowned along with the camera, and I wanted to get a larger parachutist, because he is an important “detail” of the landscape... :)
The following landscapes were shot at wide angle. If the gorge with a mountain river (No. 5) was filmed at a long focus, then either a cloud or a river would fit into the frame, because it can be extremely difficult to step back. In the mountains, there is often an abyss gaping behind you, or an impregnable wall rising like a block: not a step back, there is nothing to do here without a wide-angle lens! But it can be even worse: when your shoes break in the mountains, the end can be much more sad than your bloody feet. Yes, and you will have to break them much more if you jump barefoot with a camera over a pile of broken stones, and, of course, not in order to immediately return back, but in order to take a more beautiful angle :)
You can often hear that a photographer shoots landscapes only twice a day: in the morning and evening hours. That's right, sunsets and sunrises can be incredibly beautiful. But the main highlight is the expressive sky! The reflections of clouds on the water can brighten up even the most inconspicuous pond, in which case midday photography can bring a lot of fun.
In general, you already understand how to shoot a landscape correctly. We develop a route, we don’t jump into the abyss, we don’t climb into the water, we don’t climb rocks, and, most importantly, we carefully choose the lens and shoes :)
Photo No. 7 will tell us about shooting a sunset in the evening. Here you need to remember that the sunset can quickly disappear, so you need to choose a shooting point in advance in order to determine the angle - what and how will be in the frame (and, of course, so that the place is not taken up by photographers running from all over the area! :)) - in in general, be prepared.
We immediately set the exposure and measure the sky, because at sunset we need a good depiction of the upper part of our wonderful landscape. Nobody needs a well-exposed bottom part of the frame with completely whitened skies and no sunset. You will learn about such mistakes and measurement methods at the end of the page.
So, since such lighting requires long shutter speeds, it is best to use a tripod, or set the maximum aperture. Because I didn’t have a tripod at hand, so I chose the latter, as a result of which I got a completely acceptable shutter speed. And he turned on the flash for the foreground to capture and at the same time highlight for greater effect the impact of the wave on the stone. As you can see, sometimes landscapes can be photographed with flash :)
Landscape No. 7: The Ninth Wave:)
7. 
Aperture f4, shutter speed 1/60 s, EGF 24 mm.
Typical example multi-plane shot with close, middle and long shots. Do you know what is the most difficult thing about this photograph? This will protect the lens from splashes of salt water :) A protective filter screwed onto the lens can greatly help the photographer in such situations.
How to shoot a landscape. Tips for photographing typical landscapes:
8. 
aperture f8, shutter speed 1/500 s, EGF 27 mm.
I will not list further common tips: avoid symmetry in the frame, do not cut the photograph (or head) in half with the horizon line... be sure to use the “golden ratio rule” (or the simplified “rule of thirds”) in order to place the semantic centers of the photograph off-center , and on lines a third of the distance from the edges of the frame, or the intersections of these lines...
Take only multi-faceted photographs, with obligatory focusing (sharpness) on the near ground.
Firstly, symmetry can often have its own charm, especially when it comes to converging lines of perspective. Additionally, many photographers deliberately use perspective geometry regardless of whether there is a lack of symmetry. Or lack of presence :) Perspective can not only emphasize the depth of space, but also direct the viewer’s wandering gaze to the desired point in the frame (to the not meaningless center). For example, like this:
Cityscape: perspective :)
9. 
Secondly, each photograph can have its own semantic centers - different from the third one... there will be no normal person placing, say, a lonely tree (or person) at the same point in the frame all the time. Nevertheless, such advice on shooting landscapes (and not only) is almost always given... Let me put it simply - to take excellent photographs, you can follow the rules just as much as you can break them - and still get an excellent result. As well as not receiving it :) If everything were so simple - follow a simple set of rules and get a masterpiece - the photograph would have to be buried...
Imagine, a certain critic comes to a photo exhibition and says: “Oh, this is a great still life, the apple coincides with one of the points of the golden ratio - what an unsurpassed composition! But look at it - a completely disastrous photograph, just a disgusting portrait - because the background behind is not blurred(! ). But here is a landscape worthy of Aivazovsky's brush: the horizon line is not in the center, but, as expected, is shifted by a third from the edge of the frame! Please note, gentlemen, the next photograph is a real masterpiece, everything is sharp right up to the horizon..."
However, it smacks of insanity, doesn’t it? :) Nevertheless, I don’t see anything wrong with knowing these rules and applying them creatively, but not stupidly following them always and everywhere. I would advise beginners to start shooting by observing these rules rather than by denying them, but very carefully and unobtrusively. Let me get a little philosophical, so you can safely skip the next paragraph :)
A photograph must first of all express some plan, idea, or worldview of the photographer; or at least be simply beautiful (and, of course, technically high quality), but even all of the above is in no way a guarantee of a masterpiece... And the amount of money earned by a professional for photographs is certainly not a measure of values - this is a measure of the values and prestige of his customer, advertising, for example, toilet paper:), or lying in warehouses and unclaimed, but already produced (in a large batch!) unsuccessful model of army boots :) And also money is a measure of the punctuality of a photographer’s fulfillment of an order and the promotion of his name... This is by no means a stone against professionals, it’s just stereotype of cultural and moral values market economy :) The non-commercial photographs of your humble servant should not be considered as some kind of examples of creativity, in any case, these photographs should not be such examples, since they were selected purely for educational purposes.
How to shoot a landscape in winter
There is nothing worse and more boring than taking photographs in winter... Your fingers are freezing on the shutter button of the camera. Low season, there is no greenery, no bright rich colors, but there is only the gloom of the cloudy sky and the cold gray melancholy of the snow. The icy air makes one wonder sadly about whether the jacket will crack due to the frost, or whether frost-covered rags will fall off right at the feet of the dumbfounded photographer... :) Maybe I should just abandon photography until summer and the camera on the mezzanine? However, I like the next example much more than another brightly colored summer picture, as well as a white winter landscape that is so sharp it hurts my eyes. We all strive so hard for sharpness, don’t we?
Landscape No. 10. Winter evening.
10. 
Lens 50/1.4, ISO=400, aperture f2.4, shutter speed 1/6 s, EGF 75 mm.
This winter evening was shot with a high-aperture “portrait” lens at ISO=400, and without a tripod. Let me remind you that if the sensitivity of the sensor is not explicitly indicated, then ISO=100 is the default :) Why was the aperture set to 2.4, when the lens aperture allowed opening it up to 1.4, thereby more than halving the shutter speed, or ISO?
The perspective of the story (or twisted design) was such that I didn't want to blur the foreground even further, which was inevitable with the aperture wide open. By the way, shooting in such lighting without a tripod is not a sign of laziness and bad photographic habits of the author (as you, of course, thought), but the author was simply too cold to run home for a tripod and back for a photograph and... frostbitten hands :) I was I am so confident in the aperture power of my lens and tenacious hands that I did not consider it necessary to carry a tripod with me or run after it. Okay, I won’t fool you - I confess that I specifically took this fix so as not to take a tripod :) But the point, of course, is not only that. You should know: if you like a “shot,” you need to shoot it right away, because you won’t make exactly the same one again, even if you go back. It will be difficult (or impossible) to find that shooting point, besides, the lighting will change, and in general, everything will be wrong. But this does not mean that the author calls for clicking everything indiscriminately. You should always ask yourself: do I really need this shot? Shouldn't it be worth coming back here later, when the lighting changes and everything will be completely different? :)
Ordinary winter.
11. 
Aperture f11, shutter speed 1/750 s, EGF 24 mm.
Pair useful tips. IN very coldy You need to remember that the battery drains quickly - think about a spare one if you plan to shoot a lot, and the camera (and lens) may fog up if you bring it from the street into a warm room without a case. Don’t neglect the lens hood, it not only helps in backlit sun conditions, but also protects the lens from snowflakes. "What is a lens hood?" - they asked me in one of the letters. Anyone who laughs at a beginner’s question does so in vain: we all once learned for the first time what a camera, lens, lens hood is...
This is a 67mm threaded lens hood 16-45/4 lens with hood
12. 
A green spot spoils an otherwise good photo. Unfortunately, this does not always happen, otherwise no one would forget to carry a lens hood :) And especially in bright sunlight. Naturally, this applies not only to winter photography!
This is exactly what Alexander Sergeevich would have written if he had known about the origins of photography, which was officially recognized 3 years after the poet’s death. And if the hole of a pinhole camera can hardly be called a modern lens, then one fact does not raise the slightest doubt: the poet clearly understood the art of creating a winter landscape! :) And indeed, low-light Winter sun can greatly enliven a picture, thanks to long shadows and frosty clean air. The mysterious long shadows that trees cast on the sparkling snow can become the basis of many fairy-tale winter scenes.
| Landscape Winter morning. |
Three pines :-) |
13.  Aperture f8, 1/500 s, EGF 30 mm. |
14.  Aperture f4.5, 1/1000 s, EGF 36 mm. |
High humidity and frost - faithful companion for successful shooting of a winter landscape, but this is unlikely to be confirmed with pleasure by the photographer’s whitened fingers, forever frozen to the shutter button :) Therefore, never leave the house in such cold weather if you don’t want... to capture the trees silvery with frost, the reflections of the light shadows on the snow, and crystals of frost wonderfully sparkling in the sun, sparkling with joy! This is a real high point for those who like sharp photos :)
Landscape No. 17: Frost and sun. Landscape No. 18: Photographer's Star.
aperture f8, 1/1000 s, EGF 31 mm. lens 50/1.4, f4, 1/1500, EGF 75 mm.
17. 
18. 
Brrr... -16-18 Celsius, the star has not yet appeared for the photographer, but the snow in photo No. 17 really sparkles beautifully... But in No. 18 there is some incredible mixture of landscape and macro. And why "Photographer's Star"? After all, in the background there is an icicle and a drop captured “at a speed of 1/1500 sec,” and the Sun is in the background, in the background.
However, the Sun is a star. Central object solar system, a hot plasma ball with a diameter of 1 million 392 thousand km, with a temperature of 15 million degrees. And although this star is located about 150 million km from the Earth, it provides our planet with energy for all processes, which means life for the entire biosphere of the planet, and lighting for the photographer :)
We know that photography is impossible without light!
How to shoot a landscape in autumn.
The reasons for unsuccessful autumn photographs are not a terrible camera and cheap optics, but the photographer’s lack of experience in choosing a subject, the nature of the lighting and even the state of air transparency. The air should not be saturated with moisture (and especially exhaust gases), but clean and transparent! For expressive photographs, clear, sunny days and no wind are best if you want every leaf to be visible. Choosing the most advantageous lighting option determines the success of the photo and makes shooting golden autumn an enjoyable experience in all respects.
Fallen leaves create excessive yellow variegation in the foreground and make it too light, which can impair the conveyance of the depth of space. And then the frame is constructed so that the foreground is in the shadows (of course, there are exceptions to the rules if, for example, you need to focus the audience’s attention on fallen leaves.) However, falling leaves attract the eye in their own way, they bring dynamics to the plot, create the atmosphere of golden autumn is even more tangible! A riot of crimson, yellow, green and blue colors create a magnificent autumn palette.
№ Leaf fall
aperture f6.7, 1/250 s, EGF 24 mm.
When shooting a landscape during the “golden autumn”, the shadows are well illuminated by the reflected light flux from the yellow foliage, so the shadows here turned out to be quite well worked out. Actually, there is no need for them to look completely dark in photographs.
Determining exposure when shooting such autumn landscapes usually does not cause any difficulties. The camera itself does a great job! The only thing I didn’t want to do here was to clamp the aperture harder (it’s quite sufficient) so that the shutter speed remains no longer than 1/250, otherwise the falling leaves might be a little blurred. I still doubt whether this is the right decision or not, since local blur against the background of a clear photograph could enhance the dynamics of the fall effect. Or not?
That's the problem, now I can't sleep from the problem :-)
Autumn is beautiful, sad and rich in colors. As the poet said -
But this is illustrated by a photograph not of the Boldino autumn, but taken in a completely different place... where I ended up by the will of fate, desire and the arrangement of the stars... :-)
Old Russian city Kashin.
No. 19. Kashin autumn!
aperture f8, 1/125 s, EGF 24 mm.
In fact, I don’t like autumn (and the lush wilting of nature either!), so I limited myself to just a couple of photos. To beautifully remove the crimson, you need to wait for good soft light, then the picture will play with colors even better. Look for good light and then any camera, even a cheap one, can handle the landscape! And to avoid blurring of small parts, catch a moment of calm and, in addition, use a tripod or stop.
But in this situation I was more interested in finding an interesting angle. You know, when there is no main subject of photography in the landscape, the search for an unusual angle is sometimes as necessary as the light and richness of colors combined :-) Otherwise... it will be a sad time for the photographer!
How to shoot a landscape in spring.
It’s very easy to photograph spring: ringing streams, buds, blossoming nature, the first green leaves, flowers, buzzing cockchafer and other joys. And my spring at 24 mm at f8 turned out like this...
20. 
Architecture photography.
When you pick up a camera, sometimes it is very difficult to determine whether you are photographing architecture or a cityscape... But the point is not in the name, but in choosing a shooting point, so that the view of your favorite city is not spoiled by advertising signs that hang even on buildings historical center, depersonalizing and killing not only our history, but also a piece of the inner world of each of us - even those who did not like lessons from school :)
There was a time when city blocks were surrounded by green parks, and mothers walked with strollers near flowering lawns, and the hubbub of happy children could be heard from kindergartens. But this is what happens when money turns into an end in itself, and useful things are forgotten in favor of the golden calf. Now entire neighborhoods are being developed not for people to live in, but for profit. We are looking at a completely documentary photograph of the near future, where there is no place for people...
And this photograph is documentary because it is not a collage, not a montage, but a very real photograph, so to speak, a sketch from life.
Who said you can't shoot architecture from the bottom up with a wide-angle? Possible geometric distortions? But a wide angle will be beneficial, emphasizing the lines of perspective converging upward, thereby enhancing the effect of the height of grandiose buildings. A fantastic mixture of an ancient tower and an ultra-modern skyscraper made of glass and steel (the water tower of the Vodokanal Museum in photo 24), and the majestic and whimsical architecture of the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood - both were built in St. Petersburg, and especially for photography with a wide-angle lens :). What? Well, of course I'm joking!
In both images, the aperture is open to f6.7, EGF 24 mm.
24. 
25. 
At such a wide angle (24 mm focal length), even a not very tight aperture of 6.7 gives a large depth of field over the entire height of buildings, and even from a close shooting distance. With a wide-angle lens there is no problem, the difficulties lie elsewhere.
What to do if it is undesirable to photograph architecture from the bottom up? This often happens, but the reasons can be different:
1. the frame requires a horizontal construction of the plot... uh... on the contrary, the plot requires it :)
2. I want to cover the entire building, and not just the upper part.
3. we need an architecture without geometric distortions.
Climb onto a nearby building? For example, like this, with a winning vantage point. Well, a whole excursion around St. Petersburg: here you have the Peter and Paul Fortress (bastions and the cathedral on the left in the background), and the Neva with a “meteor” on hydrofoils, and the Admiralty (foreground) with a ship on a spire (65 kg, by the way) - one of the symbols of the city, and the Hermitage is to the right (green building).
Petersburg, city center.
Aperture f8, shutter speed 1/750 sec, EGF 67 mm.
But shooting from a high point is not always possible. And point 2 was not fulfilled, it was not possible to cover the entire Admiralty building, but it dominates here as the main subject of photography. The solution is obvious, it’s on the surface! You should graduate from the Academy of Arts and paint any architecture with brushes on canvas from the angle in which you intended it. I don’t understand, what exactly didn’t you like?
Okay, okay... let's take the camera :)
Cityscape, St. Petersburg, stock exchange building.
27. 
Aperture f6.7, shutter speed 1/180 sec, EGF 51 mm.
As you can see, everything is simple - we stepped back and did not set the widest focal length of 51 mm, which does not contribute to distortion. And we received an architectural monument of Russian classicism from the French architect Jean Francois Thomas de Thomon, who created a real ancient Greek temple from Pudost limestone: a rectangular building framed on four sides by a colonnade... and most importantly, almost without geometric distortions :-)
It is unlikely that the artist in the photograph would have turned out a better photo, since in this case she herself would not have been included in the frame, but someone has to draw pictures, right? :) Please note that the girl uses a tripod to paint the landscape, and rightly so! ok, let there be an easel...
What to do if there is nowhere to go back?
No problem, set a wide angle!
Smolny Cathedral.
aperture f7, shutter speed 1/320 sec, EGF 38 mm.
By the way, this cathedral was shot not with a specialized shift lens (which removes perspective distortions by shifting the lenses parallel to the plane of the matrix), but with an ordinary... compact. The secret of the photo is simple - distortion and noise are removed in Photoshop :) The great Rastrelli, who founded the cathedral in 1748, never thought that his creation could be painted without a brush and canvas (and then corrected in an editor) by any dude painter, nothing knowledgeable neither in painting nor in architecture :) But why go far... So I look at this Smolny Cathedral and am amazed: what kind of dude photographs architecture like that :-) This is incomprehensible to the mind!
The bottom of the building is cut off, which is not acceptable for classical photography of architecture and, especially, for its construction. Well, it’s necessary to disfigure the architect’s masterpiece... Honestly, it wasn’t me who took the photo, but the camera! Rastrelli had it easier; thank God, he didn’t have such bad photographic equipment! :-)
Pussy riot and the like! Please do not vandalize museums, churches and cathedrals. Temples should be viewed not as places for sacrifices to the gods (which no one has seen), not as premises for trade without taxes, and not as a platform for your cheap “political” self-PR. These are historical landmarks, architectural creations of great masters and architects of the past. These buildings are our Russian culture and history. The museum is not a place for dancing, sex and other destructive orgies! Don’t be a redneck, don’t offend my feelings as a deeply unbelieving person and other cultured people! I understand perfectly well what performance and freedom of expression are. Exactly as long as it doesn't interfere with others.
Now let's reflect in more detail on all aspects of architectural photography.
In fact, this genre has special requirements, especially in terms of the so-called. documentary or classical photography of architecture. First, let's start with the obvious: the photograph should be simply well exposed, the horizon should not be blocked to the side, and the focus should be on a building, temple, monument (i.e., on the subject of photography), and not on the tree standing in front.
Special requirements are to accurately convey the shape, color of the object and its proportions. Buildings must be completely included in the frame; cutting off the roof or spire is unacceptable! Bottom part the building should also fit into the frame, and if it doesn’t fit, try stepping back or find a different angle. It is very desirable that (if possible) people, advertising and cars parked nearby do not get into the frame. Nothing should distract from the main subject of photography! And even if this cannot be avoided, you need to shoot in such a way that the car does not block a quarter of the building.
The same goes for pedestrians and onlookers... A person clearly posing in front of the lens in the foreground always distracts attention, even if it does not block anything, since for classical and, if you like, documentary photography of architecture, this is completely unacceptable. Why? Well, we’re talking about the “architecture” genre now, and not a full-length portrait :-)
As you have already noticed, the author of these photos did not really fulfill (to one degree or another) the requirements for documentary classical architecture, since he is more drawn to other visual media, which should not bother you. You can attract the viewer's eye to the main subject of photography in a variety of ways, and not only by the rule of thirds, the golden ratio and other geometry. Everything you need to know has been said, but how you use it is up to you to decide.
I cite the following photograph of the creation of the architect Auguste Montferrand - St. Isaac's Cathedral - as an example of such a discrepancy with the listed requirements, albeit imperceptible. However, there are no serious mistakes. The foliage frames the temple and even directs the gaze towards it, creative issues have been resolved, color rendition is in order, the problem of onlookers (trying not only to get into the frame but also to obscure it) was radically resolved with a Kalashnikov assault rifle by choosing a specific shooting point and a long wait for the moment of solitude :-) And the disadvantages are the trees, slightly covering the bottom of the building and, partly, the colonnade, as well as a slight distortion, but Montferrand is not to blame for this :-) In terms of artistic photography, they are not disadvantages, but what about the classical approach to the genre of architecture? Yes, and no, and not really... But it will make you look like a postcard with views of the city.
St. Petersburg, St. Isaac's Cathedral.
Aperture f8, shutter speed 1/250 sec, EGF 30 mm.
By the way, all this abundance of churches indicates that under the Soviet regime they were not destroyed everywhere and purposefully due to the complete rejection of religion, as is now commonly claimed, but, on the contrary, they were preserved. There was rejection, but the temples remained. All masterpieces of architecture were maintained and preserved in the USSR at state expense, like everything that was owned by the state. And museum values too, although the media (the mouthpiece of the bourgeoisie) shouts that the Bolsheviks stole, robbed, and destroyed everything. Go to the Hermitage or the Russian Museum and admire the results of looting and destruction.
The following cityscape really is such, because it was filmed in the city, and the theme of architecture in one form or another is always present in this genre. Or it should be present :-) Before you is the Kazan Cathedral in St. Petersburg (more precisely, the view of its wing from Kazanskaya Street), was built in 1801-1811 by a former serf (!) Andrei Nikiforovich Voronikhin in the Russian Empire style. No, not a typo, not a vampire :-)
At first, this temple served as a charitable institution, then as a monument to Russian military glory, under Soviet rule - a museum of the history of religion and atheism with rather wonderful and terrible exhibits from the times of the Inquisition (funnels through which water (or molten tin) was poured into the mouths of heretics, “Spanish boots” for crushing leg bones, “crying” icons with copper tubes behind the eyes, and other historically interesting exhibits about religion), which immediately disappeared from the temple after it ceased to be a museum and again became a charitable institution: first, a joint museum-religious building, and, finally, a structure that had completely disappeared from worldly life.
But not for architecture photography :-) The exhibits have been lost, but the temple remains... The soft evening sun often creates lighting with such a color scheme that will benefit both the most inconspicuous photograph and the magnificent creation of the architects.
Left wing of the Kazan Cathedral.
It is on the right, if you look from Nevsky Prospekt :-)
30. 
Wide angle, aperture f8, shutter speed 1/180 sec, EGF 24 mm.
Despite all the advantages, the disadvantages of photography in this genre are obvious - it is not suitable for documentary architecture for a number of reasons (you will find it yourself!), but it is quite suitable for a good city landscape. By God, the author tried, he highlighted the main subject of the shooting with both light and color, and hid everything unnecessary in the shadows in order to emphasize the elements of architecture. You can throw a stone at me, but I still haven’t decided to call a tow truck :-) Go for it, you can do better!
Common mistakes
Below is another sample on the topic of how to properly shoot a landscape. Or rather, how wrong it is: the horizon is blocked (the horizon line is not parallel to the frame line), there are other disadvantages - glare, especially clearly visible in an enlarged photograph. Blocking the horizon spoils the photo, it's in bad taste. An obvious technical defect is hopelessly in harmony with a creative defect: what, in fact, is depicted? What did the author really want to show, what did he dream of conveying to the viewer?
The beauty of nature? An architectural masterpiece? A pile of plans?
Hmmm... This applies not only to the night landscape :)
The horizon is littered
31. 
Let's consider another defect, which is called "overexposed sky", we will see an example below. Many people also call this terribly ugly thing “low dynamic range of the camera.” Or a narrow photo latitude :) It is believed that dynamic range is a disadvantage of digital cameras as opposed to film cameras. In fact, film also cannot convey details well, both in the shadow areas of the plot and in the illuminated ones. This confusion usually occurs in bright sunlight due to the high contrast of dark and light areas of the image. And the really blue sky looks completely whitened in the picture with a well-exposed foreground. Or, on the contrary, the sky is normally detailed, but the foreground below is completely dark, no details are visible. Or vice versa :) But you really want blue skies, bright sun, and green grass in the shade!
That is why it is not recommended to shoot at midday, when the sun is at its zenith and especially bright. Some try to extract missing details in Photoshop, assuring that this can be done from a RAW file without problems, unlike jpg... Indeed, patience and work in Photoshop will fray everything, however, it is better to solve the problem BEFORE, not after. Because any graphic editor is a thing in which a beginner can easily and without difficulty turn a good photo into a bad one, but on the contrary, even with difficulty it will not always work :)
Shot No. 32: The sky is completely overexposed... Shot No. 33: How to shoot a landscape correctly.
32. 
33. 
Photo #32. There are no details in the sky, everything is overexposed. Indeed, low dynamic range may be the root cause... But I ignored this futile idea and simply shortened the shutter speed from 1/180 to 1/750 sec., without changing the aperture, and got shot #33. Small dynamic range suddenly became incredibly large! :)
You can even do this automatically - by measuring the exposure in the sky, and not in shady areas and shoot. We aimed at the sky, and it turned out to be the sky. We measured it the other way around - it turned out the other way around :) Fast, simple and angry. The disadvantage of this holy simplicity is obvious and lies in the fact that you are either shooting the sky or the ground in shadow areas! :) But even here you can cheat by illuminating the background that has fallen into the darkness with a flash. In such cases, it should be turned on forcibly, even if the stupid camera machine thinks otherwise. Of course, there must be a foreground (and in photographs of beginners there is usually none), and it must not only be there, but be within 3-4 meters, otherwise a weak flash may not reach it. And no closer than a meter or one and a half, so as not to overexpose nearby details... In addition, do not try to highlight the Eiffel Tower with a flash against the backdrop of a city landscape - it definitely won’t fit :)
Second way. You can take a meter in the light part of the frame, remember it, and take a meter in the dark area. Before this, the automatic mode can be used as a photo exposure meter, i.e. First you find out what the machine thinks (to set the initial exposure), and then you experiment. Here you should set manual control and, without changing the aperture, set the average shutter speed - between the dark and light parts of the measurements. Then point the camera where you want (not just the sky or a dark area) and take a shot. It’s convenient if the camera has a “remember exposure” function so as not to torture your brain’s RAM. In this case, point the camera at the desired point and take a shot without switching to manual mode.
There are other methods, for example, exposure bracketing (also known as bracketing or auto-bracketing) - you get 3 pictures with different exposures: darker, normal, lighter. Then choose the best one :) In addition, many cameras have an exposure compensation function: -/+ (darker/lighter). Sometimes it is called compensation. Here it’s a good idea to read the instructions for your own camera: whether to turn the wheel, press a button, or rummage through the menu.
In general, there can be many functions, and manual control replaces everything: you just click several pictures with the same aperture and different shutter speeds.
Sometimes it’s easier than rummaging through the menu, painfully remembering where they hid this bracketing... Or maybe it’s called an auto plug? Or maybe it's not in the menu, but on the buttons? Or maybe it's better to use exposure compensation? Or is the compensation in the instructions called correction? Or am I looking in the wrong place, or maybe I forgot something? Devil!
One hundred thousand devils, hell, the devil and the underworld! be thrice and forever damned that satanic day when I bought this infernal digital vacuum cleaner from the devil's shop! Burn with blue fire in a wooden coffin dog instructions in Turkish-Chinese!
To make things easier, many things (not just bracketing) are easier to do with shutter speed and aperture. Sometimes it seems to me that modern cameras are completely overcrowded with duplicating each other (and therefore meaningless) functions that incredibly complicate the menu, working with the camera, and the learning process... Forget everything! In fact, you need to study the following things well in the camera: focal length, shutter speed, aperture, photosensitivity, focus, flash. Although these things were improved, they did not fundamentally change for many decades; for example, autofocus appeared, but no one canceled manual focusing, and sometimes you cannot do without it at all. Don't torture your camera, shoot in aperture priority mode and/or manual control. And everything else is from a crafty guy with horns...
However, it happens that the narrow dynamic range of the camera still interferes with simple human happiness. You can achieve a good result with a “bad” sky by screwing a good gradient neutral gray filter onto the lens - half-colored glass that transmits half as much light. There are other filters, for example, polarizing, ultraviolet, neutral gray (can be used for other tasks). The filter itself is “bad” in that it costs extra money, it’s bad because cheap filters can worsen sharpness, and expensive ones are more expensive :), and besides, it is only suitable for lenses with the required diameter, which have threads for filters. This means that most compacts (as in the case of RAW) flies by, because they have neither threads nor RAW... I’m not even talking about point-and-shoot cameras, which have no manual settings for shooting at all. Owners of these cameras solve the problem in 5 ways:
You can also be satisfied with the result in different ways. When nothing works out, then you need to decide what is more important - light or dark places. Or rather, select the main subject of shooting and try to measure it. If the subject is small, then in advanced cameras you can use "spot metering". If you have a soap dish and such functions are missing as a class, and the object is in the light part, then we trust the automation. If it’s dark, you can illuminate it with a flash to work out the details in the shadows. However, in landscape photography you want to shoot everything, but the main subject may simply be missing! Then I advise you to find it, or re-read paragraphs 1 to 5 :) Now you understand why it is very bad when there is nothing for the eye to catch on in the landscape!?
I would not advise beginners to immediately run to the store and buy light filters for all occasions. Firstly, there are many subtleties for working with filters, and secondly, you need to be able to use filters, certainly understanding how, why and why, otherwise by spending money you will not get the result you were striving for. You need to come to this in much the same way as you came to the conclusion that you simply need a SLR camera, and not a compact one. Or vice versa :) The only thing that can be unconditionally recommended is a simple and inexpensive protective filter that will protect the lens from dust, dirt, splashes and mechanical damage. You can choose it according to the following principle: the more expensive the lens, the more justified the purchase of a filter.
Well, actually, that’s all for now, but the topic of “how to shoot a landscape” is, of course, not exhausted. Rather, it's brief information about what and how you can shoot with budget optics. When I prepare following materials, I'll post them on the site.
Happy shooting!
A lot has been written about landscape photography. I don’t want to repeat myself, so here I will describe the main points and focus on the problems that I directly encounter when shooting.
A very short guide to landscape photography:
- Monitor the aperture often, you need to close it tightly to F/5.6-F/16.0
- Keep an eye on the horizon; the horizon should “cut” the frame harmoniously. Carefully and thoughtfully arrange lines and proportions in the frame
- Follow light sources (sun)
- Enjoy the result
As you can see, there is nothing complicated about landscape photography. But the problem is that to get a high-quality photo, you need to work hard:
- The landscape implies that you will need to find it. Finding a good landscape is not always easy. Very often, when you find a good landscape, you don't have a camera with you.
- It is best to shoot in the morning and evening, when there is no “hard” (strong) sun. Shooting in strong and hot sunlight is very difficult.
- Since it is best to shoot in the morning and evening, and even with closed apertures, you need a tripod. A tripod means extra costs and extra weight during transportation.
- To catch good shots, you need an internal sense of harmony, which can either be innate or developed over a long time of photographing.
Masters of landscape photography have a very large stock of skills and developments in their arsenal; it is useless to describe them, since every little detail in a trick will be useful only in one case out of a hundred, and the person himself must choose exactly how he needs to shoot in a given situation.
Setting up your camera for landscape photography
- Landscapes are almost always shot with a closed aperture: F5.6-F36.0. The easiest way to do this is in priority mode.
- The ISO value must be set to the minimum: ISO 50, 100, 200,
- Color Saturation Setting - Maximum
- Focusing is best - manual, preferably focusing at infinity (on the farthest object)
Theory is great, but in practical shooting all the simplicity disappears. Firstly, when photographing landscapes, a very serious problem is the effect of overexposure or underexposure of areas in the photo. The most common example is a photo of black earth and white sky. In this case: either the sky will have details, and the ground will be completely black (dark, without details), or the ground will be normally exposed, but the sky will be greatly brightened (overexposed). It's connected with dynamic range cameras. A gradient filter helps solve this problem, which compensates for the difference in the “glow” of the earth and sky. Very often, it is enough to make a correction in order to “save” the frame a little. It can be very useful for landscapes.
Secondly: landscapes are shot with closed (covered) apertures. On digital SLR cameras, with closed apertures, every speck of dust on the matrix will be visible. This is very annoying, frustrating and greatly spoils the photo. For example, already at F11 “blots” appear on the matrix (they can be seen in the examples for this article). On F14, fine dust is already quite visible. You can fight this disease with the help of, or by lowering the aperture number. It's funny, but ordinary digital cameras (point-and-shoot cameras) and film cameras are less susceptible to this disease. On the other hand, soap dishes suffer greatly from diffraction on closed apertures.
Thirdly: often, very visually difficult to compose a shot, so that the lines fit perfectly into the frame. The horizon line is trying to tilt. When I shoot handheld, thoughtfully and carefully, and then look at the footage on the computer, the horizon often “falls” a couple of degrees. For some subjects, even 5 degrees is already an unacceptable error. To overcome the littered horizon, I turn on the “grid” in the viewfinder. The grid displays lines, dividing the frame into 9 or 12 segments, which allows you to immediately see the symmetry in the frame, as well as position the horizon evenly. Almost all Nikon central control systems support a reticle. Some cameras have a virtual horizon (for example), which allows you to control the lines. Well, if you have any problems with lines at all, you can crop the image by rotating the area in Adobe Photoshop or other editors.
Fourth: for landscapes, most often Need a very wide viewing angle, for this they use wide-angle and . All “super-wides” have (curvature of geometry). can greatly spoil the picture, or can give it something unusual (such as the fish-eye effect). Still, the less the better. Unfortunately, all ultra-wide-angle lenses have this disadvantage. can be overcome using graphic editors; some cameras have built-in correction for a number of lenses (for example,). Or, you can shoot with a longer lens without distortion. Photos of the sky were taken with a fifty-kopeck lens, which this lens does not have.
Personal experience:
If I'm shooting without a tripod, I use (priority). I usually set it to a value from 1/80 to 1/200, and I know that when shooting it will be (in good lighting) very closed, which is what is needed for landscapes. In bad light I'll still get enough sharp shot without grease, removing from hands. When I use a tripod, I work in mode A or M (priority or manual mode). With a tripod, long shots with closed apertures are not scary. I rarely photograph landscapes, so that’s where my experience ends.
I am often asked, but which is the best for landscape? There is no single answer. Sometimes, to shoot handheld in the evening, F2.8, ISO 800 is enough. And sometimes, to “freeze” a waterfall, you need F/36.0 ISO 100. By the way, at closed apertures, almost all lenses (including the kit one) give a very sharp image, so that there is no point in chasing a specialized landscape lens for home purposes.
Landscape photography becomes much more difficult if you need to photograph a person against the backdrop of nature. In this case, focusing on infinity will not always help. When photographing people in nature, I also recommend monitoring the placement of objects in the frame, and in some cases, it is better to place the person not in the central area of the picture.
Conclusions:
Shooting a landscape isn't hard, it's hard to find a good place. The most important thing in a landscape is the harmony of combinations of lines, shapes, light and shadow. To correctly compose (select) a photograph, you just need to go and experiment. In practice, experience comes very quickly.
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